Take Two says THQ won't be Around in Six Months

CEO of Take Two Interactive Strauss Zelnick, has spoken out about the future of publishing giant THQ, saying that its troubles with developers and its staff firings are a hint of things to come - suggesting that within six months, THQ could no longer be around.

"THQ's strategy was licensed properties, first and foremost," he said. "License stuff from other people, whether it's UFC or WWE or a motion picture property, and make a game around that." His preference he said, was on "100 per cent owned intellectual property."

"The most important difference is quality," he continued. "Take-Two has the highest quality ratings among third-party publishers, according to Metacritic and most people in the industry. Quality really, really, really matters. THQ has had some good games, but their quality levels aren't even remotely ... the quality hasn't measured up.

"[Changing company] strategy didn't work [for THQ] and the execution was bad. To put it another way: the food was no good and the portions were small."

"THQ won't be around in six months," he concluded.

THQ recently let go a large portion of staff from its external studios, even cutting back internally in some instances, leading to trouble with the long-time development Warhammer 40,000 MMO, Dark Millenium - which has now become a standard RPG in order to get it to completion.

It also had trouble with Adidas. After failing to produce a game version of the company's fitness application, THQ ended up in court, though it managed to weasel its way out of serious legal issues, settling before it got nasty.